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have <em>adopted</em> children from China.</p>

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<h2>Jane Brown -- Second Response</h2>
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<p>Hello David,</p>

<p>Once again, it was a great pleasure to chat with you by phone
yesterday afternoon. I am so pleased that you decided to discuss by
telephone the questions and concerns that arose in your board meeting so
that I can continue the dialogue with you and your organization. Its the
best way for your chapter to get to know me, my philosophy, and how I
fine-tune the work with children to meet the specific needs of a
specific group. It is the best way that I know to really focus in on the
particular issues and geographic culture of a particular city I'll be
traveling to so that I really am able to give the children and families
what it is that they need.</p>

<p>As I told you, I am very pleased when members of the adoption
community I'll be working with raise concerns and questions. It tells me
that they are protective of the children they are responsible for just
as they should be and that they will do their utmost to make certain
that anyone who comes to work with their children will be sensitive and
responsive to the needs of this specific group of children and has the
skill and wisdom to deliver services that are fine-tuned to this
specific geographic area and its adoption community. No parent should
ever send their child to someone they do not have complete ability to
trust and know very well. I am thrilled when parents ask me challenging
questions and cautiously move forward to consider whether I am the best
and right person to come and present to their children!</p>

<p>Now, let me try to address some of the concerns that you were
raising-- those that came up in the board meeting. Should you or other
parents have more questions or concerns or if I do not speak fully to
those that you brought to me, please do not hesitate to write or call me
again.</p>

<p>One of the things we discussed yesterday is that Canada, and
Vancouver, specifically, is much more ethnically diverse, tolerant, and
sophisticated about how community members, in general, deal with racial
differences. Also, how there is a much larger segment of the population
that is Asian-- specifically Chinese-- just as is the case in San
Francisco. With this in mind, you asked how I would handle the
activities that target racial identity development or address teasing.</p>

<p>That is an excellent point to raise. First, let me share that because
I travel all over the U.S., I see dramatic regional differences in how
racism exists and is expressed depending on what city or geographic
region I am working in. This issue is so very different for families
living in the rural or suburban Mid-western part of the U.S. than it is
for those who live in northern California or in the northeast between
Philadelphia and New York City, or in Washington, D.C. or Houston. The
likelihood of a child to encounter race prejudice varies and the way
that this would tend to arise in each of those areas is quite different,
so the activities have to be fine-tuned to that. Fine-tuning them to a
community where there is little if any race prejudice is not so very
difficult or different from that.</p>

<p>I believe that helping children to build skills to be able to stand
up to teasing, intensive questioning about adoption, race, or the racial
and ethnic difference between themselves and one or both of their
parents when this is the case is more helpful than to lead children to
believe or think that any teasing they will encounter WILL target their
race or ethnicity. I do not do this, anyway! I address teasing or
intense scrutiny in a general way so that the strategies the child
learns could be applied to standing up to teasing by a brother over
having long hair, to a friend who teases over wearing an unpopular type
of sneakers in retaliation when one wins a game and she is disappointed,
to being asked about why one's parent/s don't "match" them ethnically
("match" is how children sometimes define this when they talk over what
they perceive) and the child receiving the question perceives this as
too-intense scrutiny that feels intrusive and uncomfortable. There are
definitely times when we talk directly about encounters children have
had with race prejudice, but this is because a child or several children
raise this in the group. When it occurs, we do not dwell on this, but
move on to discuss other types of teasing that other children have to
contend with so that the race prejudice is placed into perspective.</p>

<p>You told me that one board member asked what would happen to a child
who has never been involved in a racial encounter, may not be likely to
experience that type of incident, but then hears a peer share about such
an encounter as a part of the workshop-- particularly at a young age.
Children encounter a great many experiences with teasing, bullying (peer
excluded from groups they are involved with. They are harmed if they do
not know what to do about or for the victim, the individual who is the
perpetrator, or themselves or others as onlookers-- and so, building
social skills is very important. Otherwise, peer abuse continues on into
adulthood with the individual being vulnerable to its ill-effects.
Children are not as fragile or unaware as we, as adults, sometimes think
that they are. They have often, at a young age, been exposed to very
unfair and unpleasant experiences involving teasing. They can hear about
or witness incidents where a child says or does something that is cruel,
unfair, and makes statements that are untrue and form opinions about
that without applying what they hear to themselves or formulating fears
that they might, at sometime, be subject to the same. What is most
helpful to them is that they can do something to take care of
themselves, that they are not alone-- others have done so as well, that
they have the right to get grown-ups to help them, that it is NOT
tattling to report peer abuse, and that their parents know that they may
encounter teasing and wouldn't stand by and do nothing to help. Not what
type of things they or others could potentially be teased over.</p>

<p>One other aspect of this that I would encourage parents to consider
is that even if no child ever commented about a transracially adopted
child's racial heritage or the fact that he/she is racially different
from his/her parent or parents-- when this is the case-- these children
will experience feelings of differentness. That they were born and then
adopted, that they were first Chinese and only after became Canadian (or
Canadian Chinese), that they have two sets of parents and ancestry, and
that they walk between two cultures sets them apart as being different
from most others. To learn how to contend with inner feelings about this
and others' comments that "you and your Mommy don't match" for example,
is my goal for the children in these actitivities. I do not want them to
feel vulnerable and powerless. I want them to be empowered so that they
can stand up to whatever it is they encounter or feel entitled to be who
they are no matter whether another says something unkind or they hear
nothing from others and only dwell, themselves, on how they are
different.</p>

<p>I should share, too, that even in San Francisco where one in three
persons is of Chinese ethnicity, this has not meant that children have
not experienced race-based encounters. It is the questions and
comments,, as well as teasing that undermines children's self-esteem and
sense of belonging as authentically as their non-adopted peers. Quite
often, it is the Chinese children of recently emigrated parents or those
parents who say to the adopted Chinese-born youngsters "You are not
REALLY Chinese as we are."</p>

<p>There are families in Canada who are writing of their experiences in
raising children of color in Canadian cities where there is a great deal
of diversity and tolerance. Despite this, they are not reporting that
they and their children never encounter racism or teasing about racial
and adoption differences. I'm guessing that you and your board are
already aware of this.</p>

<p>The focus of two of the other actitivities I do with the children are
on how we are similar and how differences-- racial, expression of
feelings, culture, etc.. are of value. We'll play with eggs and
jellybeans-- using these props to explore the wonderful world of skin we
share that varies in hue in delightful ways. How boring and difficult it
would be if we WEREN'T different in some ways. We learn about melanin
and how it is the folds of skin AROUND our eyes that make them appear
different in shape when they really are not. We'll also explore the
varied ways we learn, move, express ourselves. So, while I do not duck
the sensitive issues or questions with children, at the same time I
affirm the many positives in their lives with their families and in
being a part of the human family.</p>

<p>I apologize for having taken more than a week to respond to your
queries, David. I have been traveling. I was in Los Angeles over the
weekend, and returned home ill, so I haven't been writing much today. I
just got on to download my mail and noticed that I had never completed
this e-mail to you.</p>

<p>Please encourage the board members and parents to raise any and all
questions or concerns that they would like to. I think that the exchange
is extremely helpful for both me and the members of your group. You need
to know as much about me and the program as you possibly can in order to
insure that the children will get what they need and not have any
troubling surprises. I need to know as much about the population of
children and parents as possible to best offer adequate and make-sense
services that are specifically tailored to your needs. There is not a
one-size-fits-all program that I could take about to work with children.
</p>

<p>Warm Regards, Jane Brown</p>

<p>Go back to the <a href="index.htm">Jane Brown archive</a>.</p>

<p class="fineprint">Jane Brown is both an adoption social
worker/educator and an adoptive &amp; foster mother of nine children,
some of whom are now grown. She lives and works in Arizona. She serves
on the editorial board of Adoptive Families Magazine and writes a
regular parenting column for the publication. She is the creator of
Adoptive Playshops which is a series of workshops for adopted children
age five+, their non-adopted siblings, and adoptive parents in which
children are helped through playful, multisensory activities to explore
growing up in an adoptive family and racial identity, plus develop
skills for dealing with societal attitudes and beliefs about adoption
and includes helping children resist and confront racism and bullying.
She can be reached at: janebrown77@earthlink.net or at: (602) 690-5338.</p>

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